Council tax includes sewerage and fresh water in Scotland?

[Muddle2000]

Am i right that the Council tax property charge includes water bills?
In this area of England a standard Band C is the same as Edinburgh but we stlll have to pay water supply and sewerage on top?
Tell me I am not dreaming. How can it be so much cheaper in Scotland?
Wow!

No. You get one bill and on it is listed Council tax, water and sewerage. So when you see that a house is Band C, this does not include the water & sewerage charges.

Council tax in Scotland is probably lower that England as the SNP have made local authorities freeze it for the last so many years. Some think this is a good thing, some think it would give councils more to spend on vital services if it could rise.

You may also find that a standard band C house varies as the property revaluation bands were done in SCotland more recently than in England (I think) - an example of a Band C property in Edinburgh is a 2 bed mid terrace in an okay area on the outskirts of town.

You are right. The council tax demand includes the water rates. That's why in some years, even though the council tax itself has been frozen, the demand has gone up slightly, as the water rates element has gone.

If you don't have main sewerage, you should also get a discount - which happened to my dad and the other flats in his large conversion when they realised they'd been paying full water rates despite having to use a septic tank.

it rains a lot up here.....we have water to spare.

Yes, it appears on the council tax bill, yes you can get a discount if you're not on mains sewerage (but you have to remind them every sodding year in my council), yes the SNP have had a freeze for years (but make up their funding of councils to cover inflation from the start point) but also - water has not been privatised in Scotland so we're not having to pay dividends to shareholders.

www.gov.scot/Topics/Government/Finance/spfm/locgovfin

Yes, the Scottish Government have frozen Council Tax at 2007/08 levels since then - but CT accounts for only 15% of the local authorities budget. The rest comes from the gvt, who have increased annually the amount given by the rate of inflation, so that councils aren't missing out. A recent audit suggested that they've actually overfunded such payments by a couple of million over the years.

How LA choose to spend that money is up to them, so if the education budget has been cut it's an issue to take up with your councillors.